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HRWiki Standards

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HRW:ST

This page describes the standards currently accepted for page formatting and composition by the HRWiki community. Please try to follow these standards when creating and editing pages.

General

A few guidelines that it is wise to follow when creating and editing wiki pages:

Edits belong to the Wiki

Once you submit a new page, an article edit, or a correction/addition to an article, the edit no longer belongs to you. It is now the collective property of the wiki. If a user reverts the change, or nominates the article into discussion, it is done in response to the content of the edit, not the user who submitted it. Please abandon all claims to your submission, as each wiki editor has the right to determine if that edit is helpful to the wiki.

Always use the Summary box

When editing pages, always fill in the "Summary" box above the Save/Preview buttons before saving, and make sure that you fill it in with something useful describing the edit you made and, if it's not obvious, why. For example, "fixed spelling error" or "added fun fact" or "reverted from vandal 127.0.0.1" are all acceptable. Saying "made some changes" or just filling in the name of the page is not helpful, because it's information that we already have. Making your Summaries accurate and useful makes it vastly easier for the rest of us to keep track of [/wiki/Special:RecentChanges Recent Changes] and keeps everybody happy.

Note that in "[/wiki/Special:Preferences my preferences]" the user can set the wiki to warn them when an edit is being submitted without an edit summary. This option is disabled at default: enabling it is suggested.

Use the Minor Edit button appropriately

As a corollary to the above, if you're making a minor edit (e.g. fixing a spelling error, tweaking formatting, or reverting a vandalized page to its original state), check the "This is a minor edit" button below the Summary box before saving the page. On the other hand, if you're making an addition, deletion, or other edit that changes the substance of a page (even if it's just a few words), do not mark the edit as minor. Again, this will make things easier for the rest of us.

Don't link to the current page

In other words, a page should not link to itself. Most pages that do so are actually just stubs with a link to edit the current page. This variety of self-link is OK but feel free to expand upon these articles and remove the stub tag.

Link all instances of toon or game titles so that they can be easily identified. This is in lieu of using italics, quotation marks, or other punctuation (in essence, the link is the punctuation). Wherever possible, phrase the sentence or paragraph in such a way to avoid duplicate links in close proximity.

Tables and long lists should contain a link at every instance of a character, toon, place, object, etc. for ease of use for the reader.

Except for titles of toons and links in tables (see above), a given article should only contain one link to any other page. If a page links to Strong Bad in one place, then that should be the only link to Strong Bad on that page. Typically this link should be the first instance of the term in the article, and wherever possible should be in a standardized location so the reader knows where to look for them. For example, characters in a toon are linked in the cast list, and nowhere else. An exception would be a lengthy non-toon article, where characters etc. can be linked within each large section (especially if other articles link directly to a section).

The code , is used to remove the from external links and have images link to pages in non-standard ways. The {{p}} template can be used as a substitute. This class should only be used enclosing links within HRWiki which cannot be linked to using the standard [[Link]] format. Such links include Log pages, History pages, and several others. Use is not recommended in most cases due to possible confusion with an interwiki link, which would appear identical to an internal link of the plainlinks class.

Note that plainlinks should never be used with links to Homestar Runner, Thorax Corp., YouTube, or Telltale Games. The plainlinks tag causes problems with the accompanying icon. (For a complete list of all the interwiki links,with an icon or not, see Help:Namespaces#Interwiki Links.)

Special Characters

When you must include characters that are not available in 7-bit ASCII encoding (generally, anything you can't type on your keyboard without using special tricks), please use character references, either numeric (é = é) or entity (é = é) style. Do not use whatever feature of your operating system allows you to insert special characters directly, as this introduces complicated encoding concerns to both the server and the browser. This includes features like Microsoft Word's "AutoCorrect", which often automatically creates such things as arrows, ellipses, em dashes, and left/right quotation marks as you type.

Try to avoid special characters when possible, as some systems and browsers struggle with them. In particular, be sure to use the generic ' and " characters for all single and double quotation marks and apostrophes except in special cases. The exception, however, is the em dash (— = —), which is much preferable to a single or double hyphen (- or --) when it's used to mark out an independent clause within a sentence or to indicate interruption of a thought.

Don't use conversational style

This is an information site. It should read like Wikipedia, not like your diary.

  • Check your spelling and grammar. Don't use Internet slang (ex. "How r u?" or "c u 2nite"). If you're not 100% sure about the way a word is spelled, type it into Google or Dictionary.com. If you know that you're not the strongest speller, compose your edits in a word processor like Microsoft Word that has spell-checking built in. Also see this list of common misspellings.
    • Don't use "smileys" or "emoticons".
    • An exception to this rule is when such misspellings or slang appear directly in a cartoon, in which case they should be preserved in the transcript. If the misspelling or wrong word is conspicuous, mark the word with the Latin "sic" - traditionally, it is written [sic] visibly in the text after the incorrect word, but in transcripts it's usually preferred to make the "sic" invisible to the reader by typing "".
  • Easter Eggs and Fun Facts should be written as statements, not questions. If you're not sure about a fun fact, you can use language like "may" or "could be" to indicate ambiguity; however, unsure and unsubstantiated fun facts are usually quickly deleted. Avoid using weasel words.
  • Don't "reply" to content others have posted. If you think a particular point warrants discussion, post on the article's talk page. If you're 100% sure that something should be changed and don't think a discussion is necessary, just change it. Dialogue goes only on articles' talk pages or the forum.
    • If something on a page contains a factual error, then edit it or remove it. Do not add a comment below saying "this is wrong."
    • Don't leave notes or instructions to future editors like "Add more information here if you find it". Again, use the article's talk page if you want to communicate with other editors.
  • Never abbreviate the names of characters, toons, or things on the site (e.g. The KoT or SBEmails). Wherever possible, use the full name of a character the first time they are mentioned. After the first mention, you may refer to "The King of Town" as "the King" or "Homestar Runner" as "Homestar" and so forth.
    • An exception to this rule is the bolded character attributions in transcripts, which should always contain the full name of the character speaking.
  • Avoid the first person ("I" or "We"; e.g. "We last saw Gavin in personal favorites.") and the second person ("You"; ex. "You might remember Gavin from personal favorites." Imperative commands have an implied "You" and are also in the second person) when possible. Use the third person (e.g. "Gavin last appeared in personal favorites.") instead.
    • An exception is when describing how to activate Easter eggs; use of the second person is permitted here.

Quoting

Needless to say, when quoting an individual, be accurate. If including a quote would make for an awkward sentence structure, you may change minor words to match the context and set them off with single square brackets. Ex. In Shopping for Danger, Reynold "was upset that [Gunhaver] never let [him] go on any missions."

Maintain a Neutral Point of View (NPOV)

Our knowledge base documents the Homestar Runner body of work, not our personal opinion. Keep articles clean of speculation or any type of judgment or opinion. An example of a point of view (POV) edit is "Coach Z took off his disturbing swim gear in underlings," which should be phrased as "Coach Z took off his swim gear in underlings" to make it NPOV.

Don't sign your edits

All contributions are appreciated, but if every user left their mark on every contribution they made, the wiki would be nothing but signatures. If you've made an edit that you're particularly proud of (such as a transcript or screenshot), the correct place to take credit is on your own user page. If you do not have a user account, we respect your anonymity, but your edits will remain anonymous, too.

Do sign your Talk posts

Shortcut:

HRW:SIGN

If you make a post on a discussion page, please sign it. If you have a user account, this is as easy as typing ~~~~ at the end of your post. If you don't have a user account, just sign it with your name or nickname followed by ~~~~~ (5 tildes, not four) to generate a timestamp. Alternatively, you can use ~~~~: the wiki will generate a signature based on your IP address. Even better, create an account anyway and use the signature method described; there really is no reason not to if you're going to stick around. All of this helps when it comes to knowing who's who. Also, please try to keep discussions on just one talk page; don't move it to another talk page to reply.

Be bold, but know when not to be

Shortcut:

HRW:BOLD

We encourage you to be bold in making simple edits; if you see something that you think needs to be fixed, then fix it. Please note, however, that in being bold you should not contradict established consensus. Additionally, the reason we encourage boldness is because it's fairly simple to revert a page to a previous state. For larger projects, therefore, the amount of boldness you display in making a change should be directly proportional to the ease of reverting that change. In other words, if it would take us a long time to undo what you've done, then you should start a discussion to see what the community thinks first. In a similar vein, anything that goes against longstanding tradition or that would have a widespread effect on the wiki should be talked about before any action is taken.

Toons

The basic format for Toons pages looks like this: 

{{toonnav|Toon category|filename|Previous Toon|Next Toon}}
[[Image:<name of toon>_screenshot.png|thumb|Caption for image.]]

A short summary of the Toon's premise followed by the cast
listing.

'''Cast (in order of appearance):''' {{Film|Homestar Runner}},
{{Film|The Cheat}}

'''Places:''' [[Strong Badia]], [[Place]]

'''Date:''' When the toon was released

'''Running Time:''' The toon's length (by minutes)

'''Page Title:''' What appears in the browser's titlebar

== Transcript ==
''{A brief description of the scene.}''

'''CHARACTER A:''' What Character A said.

'''CHARACTER B:''' ''{singing}'' What Character B sang.

''{Cut to some other scene. Character A is doing something while Character C does something else.}''

== Easter Eggs ==
*A bulleted list
*Of all of the toon's Easter eggs
*:'''CHARACTER A:''' What Character A said in the Easter egg.

== Fun Facts ==
===Explanations===
*A bulleted list
*Of fun facts about the toon
===Trivia===
*Be sure to keep
===(see other subcategories below)===
*Facts in the proper subcategories
*And only use the ones you need

== External Links ==
{{extlinks|filename|forum thread ID|YouTube ID}} ← use {{sbemailextlinks}} for Strong Bad Emails; see below

Screenshot

In most cases this should be a PNG image uploaded to the wiki via the [/wiki/Special:Upload Upload file] page. Its dimensions should be approximately the same size as on the official site. JPEG format is generally only desirable for "live action" toons such as , and GIF and BMP formats are never desirable. When uploading the file, be sure to give it a meaningful name which describes its content, as in the example above. "homestar_with_a_hat.png" is not meaningful. "dangeresque_3_screenshot.png" is more meaningful.

Most toons are framed by a border with rounded edges. When taking a full-sized screenshot, cropping the frame of the toon will leave rounded black regions in each corner. To remove these, replace each black corner with the color of the nearby part of the image (for the most part, those regions are monochromatic). This method is preferred to merely cropping the frame so that the black corners are out of image, since this latter approach omits some of the information in the scene.

The screenshot should be added as a thumbnail, as shown above. Use a caption which is fun and demonstrates the tone or plot of the toon. In most cases, the caption will be a quote from the toon; these should be put in quotes. However, when the caption is not a direct quote, do not use quotation marks. It is common, but by no means required, for the caption to match the scene the image is from. If using an image from earlier or later in the toon than where the caption was derived yields a better combination of image and caption for the article, that's what should be done.

Please note that articles on topics other than toons normally have a thumbnail as well. The caption to these types of images may or may not be from the same toon the image is from, depending on the article; there's nothing wrong with having the caption and the image from two separate places if it works.

Summary

The summary section generally contains at most six things, as applicable: a short synopsis, a list of the cast, a list of locations seen in the toon, the date of the toon's release, the running time of the toon, and the page title.

The synopsis should be a brief description of the premise of the toon. It is not necessary to describe the entire plot of the toon or give away the ending, and the synopsis should only be a couple sentences long.

The cast list should take the following form: 

'''Cast (in order of appearance):''' {{Film|Character A}}, {{Film|Character B}}, {{Film|Character C}} (Easter egg)

Note that everything between (and including) "Cast" and the colon (:) is between the bold markers, and each character's name is separated by a comma and a space. The characters should be listed in the order in which they appear in the toon. If a character appears only in an Easter egg, then denote this as above, with the words "Easter egg" in parentheses. The list of places should be presented in the same manner.

It is preferable to link to the characters or places in the cast or place list but not in the synopsis, so as to keep the cast or place list consistent and so as to follow the Link Once rule.

Characters should be linked to by the {{Film}} template. This automatically adds the character's filmography category to the page. All major characters have this category. See for a complete list of characters with filmography categories. This template is recommended even for characters without filmography categories, as they may be created in the future.

The date of release should be formatted with the month (spelled out), the day (numeric), a comma, and the year (four digits). The date is determined by the time in Atlanta (Eastern Time) when the toon is released (this is observed strictly, despite any efforts by The Brothers Chaps to be sneaky, for example by releasing a Halloween toon late and claiming it's still Halloween in certain time zones). The running time should match what is listed as the running time on the official site unless that time is clearly wrong. If there is a difference between the official and the actual running time, it should be noted on the page: 

'''Running Time:''' ##:## [[TV Time Toons Menu|official]], ##:## actual

If no official time is listed, the running time is generally calculated by assuming 12 frames of Flash equal one second. (Rarely, a toon will be produced with a different frame rate. Use the correct frame rate to calculate the length of the toon.) The running time does not include Easter eggs, but does include anything that happens after waiting at the end (including the wait itself).

Finally, denote the page title after the running time like so: 

'''Page Title:''' A Funny Page Title

The page title is found in the titlebar at the very top of your Web browser window.

If a disambiguation link is needed (such as the {{for}} template), it should be put at the very top of the page, above the summary.

Transcript

A transcript is a detailed account of a toon's dialogue and action. Its basic format is this: 

''{A brief description of the scene.}''

'''CHARACTER A:''' Something witty.

'''CHARACTER B:''' ''{singing}'' Something melodious.

''{Cut to some other scene.}''

As you can see, a line of dialogue begins with the character's name in upper case followed by a colon, all of which is bold. This is followed by a space and then what the character said. When different characters are speaking their dialogue should be separated by a blank line.

If a character does something while speaking a line of dialogue, or if more description is needed for their manner of speaking or inflection (e.g. if they're singing or whispering) the action (if it is not too long to describe in a few words) can be enclosed in curly braces — { } — and made italic, like this: {goes to the refrigerator}. Note that the curly braces themselves are also italic. Short actions like these do not need to be proper sentences.

If there is a scene change or major action (which takes more than a few words to describe), it should be separated from the dialogue by a blank line above and below, and in this case complete sentences and proper capitalization and punctuation are desirable.

There is a special case for Strong Bad Emails. When Strong Bad is reading an email on his screen, its text should be enclosed in

tags like so: 

<blockquote class="email">
<div>subject: bored...</div>
Dear Strongbad,<br />
Does it ever get boring where you live? Right now I am<br />
bored out of my mind.<br />
<br />
With lots of crap,<br />
Callie, Lake Jackson, TX
</blockquote>

The email should be formatted as it appears on Strong Bad's screen, with line breaks, etc. in the same places. If Strong Bad is using his Tandy 400, use

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